This invention relates to apparatus for material and metal processing, and more particularly to a hand held laser cutting, drilling and welding tool and to a manual laser process system.
In laser material processing for such areas as development, repair and overhaul, manual capability is not presently available and is needed where computer control would not be cost effective. The technologies that have been used in the past to address the problems in development, repair and overhaul have been tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding, arc welding, electron beam (EB) welding, torch and vacuum brazing, and electro discharged machining. There are repair welds on equipment that are not always accessible to the conventional processes mentioned above. There are conditions where material must be removed from plug holes that are not always accessible by mechanical or EDM techniques. Also, if accessible by EDM, the process is very slow and cannot be done by hand. The same accessibility concerns would exist with other processes.
It has been shown that a neodymium:YAG laser used in pulsed mode is coupled to and passed through a single quartz fiber optic cable at peak power levels required for laser material processing. This flexible fiber permits laser cutting, drilling, and welding of metals with a robot. Refer to commonly assigned copending application Ser. No. 450,951, filed Dec. 20, 1982, M.G. Jones and G. Georgalas, "Laser Material Processing Through a Fiber Optic", now abandoned, and continuation application Ser. No 714,660, filed Mar. 21, 1985. Hand held laser fiber optic medical and surgical instruments have been developed, but the power levels are low. The neodymium-YAG laser, a source of 1.06 micrometer wavelength energy, has provided 100 watt continuous wave average power for surgical applications. Peak powers in excess of 1000 watts is more suitable for metal processing.